Facial Recognition – Patent Landscape & Competitor Comparison

Facial Recognition Patent Landscape & Competitor Comparison

May 2019

Introduction Facial recognition is a method of identifying or verifying the identity of an individual by analyzing patterns based on the person’s facial contours. Facial recognition technology is being applied to a wide range of application areas such as law enforcement, security and authentication. The facial recognition market is expected to grow to $9.6 billion by 2022, registering a CAGR of 21.3% during the forecast period of 2016- 2022. [1]

In this report, we have analyzed the currently active published patent applications owned by entities working in facial recognition related technologies. These include companies such as Canon, Samsung, Fujifilm, Sony, Oppo and Intel. Unless otherwise stated, the report displays numbers for published patent applications that are currently in force. The analytics are presented in the various charts and tables that follow. These include the following,

• Taxonomy • Publication Trend – Top Players • Summary • Geographic Distribution – Top Players • Technology Trends • Technology Distribution – Top Players • Key Geographies • Patent Quality – Top Players • Emerging Players • Comparative Topic Map – CPC Codes • Top Players - Portfolio Makeup • Competitor Comparison

Insights • Canon and Samsung are the largest patent holders among the companies working in facial recognition technologies. • A significant upward trend is observed post 2015 in the overall number of published patents. • China is the preferred filing jurisdiction with more than 40% publications, followed by the US with 25% publications. • Oppo and Xiaomi are the top emerging/new players in this technology space (i.e. entities with published applications only from 2014). • Most of the of the emerging/new players in this technology space are based in China. • Post 2015, the published applications of Oppo covering facial recognition technologies exhibit a sharp increase, whereas Fujifilm's publication trend in similar technology areas shows a decline starting in 2011.

References

1. Facial Recognition Market (Alliedmarketresearch.com)

Taxonomy

Summary

Technology Trends

Key Geographies

Emerging Players (Entities with published applications only from 2014) Emerging Top Patent Holders # Applications Type Country 2014 - present OPPO 393 Consumer electronics China XIAOMI 219 Consumer electronics China MEGVII 138 AI technology China VIVO 106 Consumer electronics China SENSETIME 92 AI technology Hong Kong ALIBABA 81 E-commerce China AMAZON 72 E-comm, cloud computing USA XIAOKONG 65 Tech hub China BOE TECHNOLOGY 58 Display products China PING AN TECH 55 AI technology China KUANGSHI TECHNOLOGY 53 Software China NUBIA TECHNOLOGY 46 Consumer electronics China ZTE 46 Telecommunication equipment China UNIVERSITY OF NANJING POSTS & 40 Academic China TELECOMMUNICATIONS CAL-COMP 38 Research Thailand QIHOO TECHNOLOGY 37 Internet China FORD 33 Automobile USA INTELLIFUSION 32 AI technology China UTECHZONE 32 Optical imaging Taiwan MEITU ZHIJIA 30 Software China

Top Players - Portfolio Makeup Patent Organic Acquired Transferred # Applications # Families Top Jurisdictions Holders (# Applications) (# Applications) from

JP (601), US Canon 1084 708 1084 (275), CN (115)

KR (318), US Hanwha (14), Samsung 913 459 (315), CN (105), 881 32 Harman (8) EP (94)

Fujifilm 737 461 JP (405), US (225) 461

US (272), JP Sony 724 370 (173), CN (108), 724 EP (108)

Oppo 374 325 CN (317) 374

INVISION US (154), CN (72), Intel 338 149 330 8 BIOMETRICS (4), EP (54) OLAWORKS (4)

Publication Trend – Top Players

Pub Year Canon Samsung Fujifilm Sony Oppo Intel 2001 3 2002 2 1 1 2 2003 1 3 1 2004 4 1 2 2005 4 8 6 2 2006 4 14 24 5 1 2007 13 22 39 10 2008 23 13 42 23 3 2009 29 18 65 42 1 2010 32 22 104 49 1 2011 59 28 132 59 2 2012 120 47 92 85 4 2013 151 61 48 65 17 2014 136 140 35 87 5 40 2015 86 92 15 71 6 38 2016 128 140 36 66 31 54 2017 130 125 45 70 88 89 2018 135 154 38 59 200 65 2019 28 28 11 24 43 21

Geographic Distribution – Top Players

Geographies Canon Samsung Fujifilm Sony Oppo Intel US 275 315 225 272 17 154 JP 601 25 405 173 16 CN 115 105 64 108 317 72 KR 19 318 6 20 18 EP 43 94 32 108 11 54 TW 1 2 3 20 19 WO 1 7 1 3 28 GB 9 15 3 IN 1 13 1 6 1 DE 6 7 2 4

Technology Distribution – Top Players

Technologies Canon Samsung Fujifilm Sony Oppo Intel Pictorial Communication 876 513 551 473 110 136 Data Presentation 349 598 331 459 294 299 Image Data Processing 398 292 319 301 96 153 Digital Data Processing 104 244 77 233 128 141 Photography - Camera 335 64 215 84 11 4 Optical Elements 157 34 97 36 6 4 Displays (Circuits) 24 57 15 43 2 12 Telephonic Communication 3 46 5 20 38 19 Data Processing Systems 7 20 17 26 5 27 Data Transmission 4 24 3 23 10 33

Patent Quality – Top Players (Relecura Star Rating on a scale of 5)

Relecura Canon Samsung Fujifilm Sony Oppo Intel Star Rating 0.5 1 2 0 1 23 0 1 7 20 6 10 7 1 1.5 335 226 151 102 281 48 2 242 92 171 108 10 8 2.5 97 92 100 116 4 71 3 25 22 28 28 0 18 3.5 1 2 5 3 0 3 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 4.5 1 2 0 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0

Comparative Topic Map – CPC Codes – Top Players • This Topic Map shows the comparison of CPC codes addressed by the portfolios of Canon, Samsung, Fujifilm, Sony, Oppo and Intel. • Absolute count comparison: The size of each bubble represents the total number of patent applications across the compared portfolios and the coloured sectors represent relative number of applications in the respective portfolios of each patent holder. • The bubble proximity corresponds to the “relatedness” of the individual CPC Codes.

Class Code Description Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> where the recognized objects include H04N 5/23219 parts of the human body, e.g. human faces, facial parts or facial expressions Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Detection; Localisation; G06K 9/00228 Normalisation Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Classification, e.g. G06K 9/00288 identification H04N 5/23293 Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Electronic viewfinders Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Focusing based on image signals H04N 5/23212 provided by the electronic image sensor

Class Code Description G06T Image analysis or enhancement >> Face 2207/30201 Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Local features and G06K 9/00281 components; Facial parts Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Acquiring or recognising G06K 9/00221 human faces, facial parts, facial sketches, facial expressions Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Devices for controlling television H04N 5/232 cameras, e.g. remote control; Control of cameras comprising an electronic image sensor Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Feature extraction; Face G06K 9/00268 representation Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> using facial parts and G06K 9/00248 geometric relationships Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> using acquisition G06K 9/00255 arrangements Data security and security of computers and components >> using biometric data, G06F 21/32 e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Facial expression G06K 9/00302 recognition Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Computer-aided capture of images, H04N 5/23222 e.g. transfer from script file into camera, check of taken image quality, advice or proposal for image composition or decision on when to take image G06F 3/012 Digital interface arrangements >> Head tracking input arrangements H04N 21/4223 Interactive TV, Video on demand >> Cameras Digital interface arrangements >> Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of G06F 3/017 recognized hand gestures Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Control of parameters, e.g. field or H04N 5/23216 angle of view of camera via graphical user interface, e.g. touchscreen Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Control of means for changing angle H04N 5/23296 of the field of view, e.g. optical zoom objective, electronic zooming or combined use of optical and electronic zooming G06K 9/00308 Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Static expression Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Circuitry for evaluating the H04N 5/2351 brightness variations of the object Hardware or software aspects of TV signals >> Operation mode switching of H04N 5/23245 cameras, e.g. between still/video, sport/normal or high/low resolution mode Interactive TV, Video on demand >> Detecting physical presence or behaviour of the H04N user, e.g. using sensors to detect if the user is leaving the room or changes his face 21/44218 expression during a TV program G06T Image analysis or enhancement >> Video; Image sequence 2207/10016 G06T 11/60 Generating 2D Images >> Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text

Class Code Description G03B 13/36 Viewfinders, focus systems for cameras >> Autofocus systems Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> using comparisons between G06K 9/00261 temporally consecutive images Digital interface arrangements >> Arrangements for interaction with the human G06F 3/011 body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality Reading or recognising printed or written characters >> Preprocessing; Feature G06K 9/0061 extraction

Competitor Comparison – Technology Category-wise Break-up (# Applications given for color-coded categories) Technology Categories Canon Samsung Fuji Film Sony Oppo Intel Context of image Face detection 173 189 104 248 79 127 Image analysis, Color image 537 457 391 349 49 153 Image acquisition enhancement Photographic image 409 249 204 334 50 166 modality Video 550 641 163 799 29 364 Camera control by 774 481 340 556 151 66 Pictorial face recognition communication Face recognition by 17 17 38 5 0 1 reading patterns Classification 233 229 130 171 49 191 techniques Design of recognition Methods for 370 378 156 270 74 188 systems recognition Comparing pixel 188 256 128 158 47 125 Matching values Proximity measures 128 102 53 82 26 37 Age estimation from 13 18 5 27 10 9 face Recognition of Classification 39 9 25 30 5 5 unknown faces Acquisition Recognising 60 114 36 86 69 49 arrangements patterns Comparisons 30 33 26 38 10 39 Detection between images Recognising human Facial parts 84 77 86 93 26 168 faces Pixel segmentation, 33 37 26 33 7 29 color matching Facial parts 91 153 50 83 60 117 Face representation representation Full facial image 10 63 13 5 13 11 Facial expression Dynamic expression 28 53 12 38 0 42 recognition Static expression 22 38 8 68 9 20 Metadata assisted face 12 10 1 24 3 2 recognition

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